Born at Gresford, the son of William and Mary Jones, he was brought up at Poulton, Cheshire. He started work as an apprentice in Chester in 1780, and encountered a Baptist congregation there. In 1782–3 he moved to London, where he was in the congregation of Abraham Booth, returning to Chester after about a year. Jones fell under the influence of Archibald McLean, who preached in Chester for some weeks in autumn 1786, and was baptised by him. The congregation joined the Scotch Baptists. He moved to Liverpool as a bookseller in Castle Street, in 1793, buying the business from his brother-in-law, and publishing McLean's work A Defence of Believer-Baptism. At this period he held religious meetings in his home, also perhaps attending those of Samuel Medley. In the late 1790s McLean set up a Liverpool congregation in Lord Street, with John Richard Jones of Ramoth. William Jones was an elder of this church. In 1812 Jones moved to London, working as a bookseller. He was minister, or elder of the church in Windmill Street, Finsbury, for the rest of his life. By the late 1820s, suffering financial troubles, Jones was taking on work writing books for Thomas Tegg. It was the American art student Peyton C. Wyeth who formed Jones's contact with Alexander Campbell in the mid-1830s.
Jones also edited a series of periodicals: Theological Repository and Christian Advocate were from his time in Liverpool. In London there were the New Evangelical Magazine and New Baptist Magazine ; and The Baptist Miscellany and Particular Baptist Magazine. In 1829 Jones published lectures on the Apocalypse. The Millennial Harbinger introduced the theories of Alexander Campbell, around 1835. Later Jones broke with Campbell. In general terms Jones published material supporting the Scotch Baptists, and restorationism, and opposed established religion. The publications he edited had a wide circulation in Scotland. Jones edited the works of Archibald McLean and Samuel Stennett. He wrote biographies of Adam Clarke, Rowland Hill, and Edward Irving.
Family
Jones married Maria or Elizabeth Crane, daughter of Thomas Crane of his congregation in Chester, in 1786.
